In a paper given at the 26th Annual Technical Conference 1971, Reinforced Plastics/Composites Division, The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc., entitled "Fiberglass Reinforced Furan Composites--An Unique Combination of Properties", 1971, K. B. Bozer, et al. disclosed fiberglass reinforced furan laminates made by modified furan resins and a series of new catalysts. These resin-catalyst systems offer improved processing characteristics. The laminates prepared with these systems were reported to have physical properties comparable to polyesters while exhibiting outstanding chemical resistance, good heat distortion and flame resistance, and low smoke emission.
K. B. Bozer and L. H. Brown, in an article entitled "High Temperature and Combustion Properties of Furan Composites" given at the 27th Annual Technical Conference 1972, Reinforced Plastics/Composites Institute, The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc., reported the performance of furan resins and chemically resistant furan-fiberglass composites at elevated temperatures, in particular the flame resistance of these materials. The furan-fiberglass composites used in this article are laminates fabricated by conventional hand lay-up technique.
J. E. Selley, in his article entitled "Furfuryl Alcohol Resins with Low Flame-Spread Low Smoke" given at the 29th Annual Technical Conference 1972, Reinforced Plastics/Composites Institute, The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc., disclosed new catalysts suitable to be used in furan resins, which allow improved processing and fire performance. In this article, fiber reinforced furan resin composites are fabricated by lamination.
K. B. Bozer and D. D. Watson, in their article entitled "Furfuryl Alcohol Resin Systems for Hand Lay-Up and Spray-Up Fabrication" given at the 30th Annual Technical Conference 1975, Reinforced Plastics/Composites Institute, The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc., disclosed a new furfuryl alcohol-based resin and catalyst system with improved handling and laminate performance properties for hand lay-up or spray-up fabrication of fiberglass/furan resin composite.
W. A. Szymanski and D. W. Kloda, in their article entitled "Polyester and Furfuryl Alcohol Resins for Corrosion Control", Chemical Engineering Progress, Vol. 70 No. 1 pp. 51-54 (1974), described processes for preparing fiberglass reinforced plastics by using polyester and furfuryl alcohol resins, which include a spray winder technique, a molding process and a laminating process. The spray winder technique integrally combines filament winding with chopped glass strand and resin spray-up.
In an article entitled "Glass fibre Reinforced furan Resins", The Chemical Engineer, April 1978, P. A. Downing discussed the characteristics of glass fibre reinforced furan resin composite and illustrates the advantages thereof in corrosion control, in which the composites are fabricated by hand lay-up and filament winding techniques. The inventor of present invention, Chen-Chi Martin Ma, and his co-worker in U.S. Pat. No. 4,873,128, disclosed a process for pultruding fiber reinforced phenolic resin products, in which a liquid phenolic resin for impregnating filaments is heated to a temperature of 45.degree.-65.degree. C. during the impregnating step so that the phenolic resin has a suitable impregnating viscosity.
It can be seen from the above-mentioned articles that the fiber reinforced furan resin composites have relatively strong physical strength, outstanding chemical resistance at elevated temperature and good flame resistance. However, there is no one who attempts to produce fiber reinforced furan resin composites by pultrusion process prior to the present invention.
The main object of present invention is to provide a process for pultruding fiber reinforced furan resin composites.